Boris Pugo

Boris Pugo (19 February 1937-22 August 1991) was Interior Minister of the USSR from 1 December 1990 to 22 August 1991, succeeding Vadim Bakatin and preceding Viktor Barannikov. He was one of the plotters of the August Coup, and he shot himself before he could be arrested.

Biography
Boris Pugo was born in Kalinin, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now Tver, Russia) in 1937, and he was raised in his family's homeland, the Latvian SSR. He worked in various Komsomol, CPSU, and Soviet government positions in both Riga and Moscow, and he served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Latvia from 1984 to 1988, as Chairman of the Central Control Commission from 1988 to 1991, and as Interior Minister of the USSR from 1990 to 1991. He supported the August Coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991, and he shot himself rather than be arrested following the coup's failure; his wife followed suit.